Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the computerization of documents, and to an apparatus and a method for managing the electronic original data of important documents.
Conventionally, original data of important documents are processed and managed in paper media. The original data has been handled and managed in a file. However, with an increasing number of personal computers and the development of network environment, various electronic services such as inter-company transactions, electronic settlements, etc. have been realized and provided. Thus, important documents processed in paper medium have been stored and processed in electronic media. With the progress of electronic technology, document management applications associated with databases have been developed, and documents have been managed using these applications.
However, there have been the following problems with the conventional document management applications.
1. Since documents are managed in a computer operated by a user, the date of generation of a document, etc. can be easily falsified.
2. Since documents are managed in a computer operated by a user, a document can be easily deleted.
3. Since documents are managed in a computer operated by a user, a document can be easily forged. Although a document management application stores the history of the manipulation of documents, the history can be easily forged.
4. When a document is copied, the same electronic documents can be easily produced, thereby confusing the original document with a copy.
Thus, since electronic documents have the above described problems which are not detected in paper medium, a larger number of restrictions are placed in manipulating electronic documents than in manipulating paper media. Therefore, although documents can be electronically processed, they finally have to be output on paper media when contracting and ordering processes are performed, and have to be managed as legal documents.
The present invention aims at providing an apparatus and a method for securely managing the electronic original data of an important document.
The electronic original data management apparatus according to the present invention includes a registration device, an assignment device, a management device, and an issue device.
According to the first aspect of the present invention, the registration device registers electronic information as original data information, and the assignment device assigns to the electronic information the logical identification information for identifying the electronic information uniquely in logic and the location identification information indicating the physical location of the electronic information. The management device manages the original data information using the combination identification information based on the combination of the logical identification information and the location identification information, and the issue device issues registration certificate information containing the combination identification information, and is used for access to the original data information.
According to the second aspect of the present invention, the management device generates a series of instances of corresponding original data information depending on a change in a time series of the electronic information, and manages the series of the instances as one original data sequence. The assignment device assigns original data sequence identification information to the original data sequence. The issue device issues registration certificate information which contains the original data sequence identification information, and is used for access to an instance in a series of instances.